ROOK, BRIDGE AND PAMINNA CHEESE

I was reminded yesterday on another blog, of the writer’s remembrance of helping her Mother prepare for afternoon ROOK parties.   She told of the pimiento cheese spread they made for sandwiches, even gave the recipe (sounded lovely---lots of SHARP Cheddar, grated fine on the big box grater, as it should be), and showed the slightly-worn box of little cutters used for the fancy sandwiches.   They were in “card shapes” of heart, diamond, spade and puppy-foot, as well as a neat little crescent moon, which I don’t suppose symbolized anything, for it looked like a little lagniappe bit of filler to fit the box.

In our area, my parents’ Rook parties were for an evening at the big round breakfast-room table, with nibbles and snacks, including Paminna Cheese in one form or another---in sandwiches, not quite so dainty as the above, or in a bowl or neat mound or mold surrounded by Premiums or Ritz, or nestled into the niche of short cuts of celery, crisp and cold against that smooth, tangy spread.   Rook was for four, and seldom were there extra tables---just another couple invited to play for a couple of hours, as the big frosty glasses of iced tea or maybe beer were set right onto the table, carefully out of harm’s way amongst the lively slap-down of trumps or that elusive bird.    Coffee was started somewhere later in the game, and I’d get the dessert cut and all served up onto little plates---my homemade Pound Cake or Coconut Cake, or chess pie---nothing too elaborate or messy amongst the cards and ashtrays and cups.  

My folks never played Bridge---I think my Mother felt it a little above them, for most of our neighbors were of the Country Club set and the Bridge and Garden and Civic clubs, whereas Mother belonged only to Home Demonstration and Missionary Society, and Daddy’s only organization was Masons.   I think she thought that the ladies of Wednesday Bridge or Thursday Bridge had their own social level, their own topics of conversation like fashion and travel and social connections in Memphis and Greenville and Jackson, whereas in our home, it was also books, but cooking and sewing, crosswords and Monopoly, and the people we knew were mostly like us---once-a-year-Rock City types, not Hawaii or Rome.

And Jeanne, our diagonal neighbor---she of the beauty shop permanents and the subscription to Seventeen, of the Saturday afternoons spent one-foot-languidly-moving the big porch swing as she sat with her petticoated-skirt spread out and a whole icy pitcher of lemonade next to her glass, would sometimes allow me to come over whilst her Mother and Daddy hosted BRIDGE.  (Personally I’ve always thought that she wanted to show off a bit, or that she was bored, for the only TV was in the Living Room, and she was at loose ends for the afternoon).

Several times a month, the half-dozen cars would line their drive on weekday afternoons, a sure sign that the Wednesday Afternoon or the Thursday Afternoon Bridge Club was in residence, with Mattie bringing out the little cream-cheese-and-pecan sandwiches and the Bridge Mix and coffee, and later, the Manhattans. (And them a mere two houses from the Baptist Church).   I was fascinated by even the term Bridge Mix---just think of having a special candy for such a circumscribed use---and loved the thought of it as much as the few nibbles offered to me over the years at my friend Jeanne’s house.

In Summer, we'd hide and watch all the festivities, braving the clots of smoke to listen and giggle from the hall. We also got to scavenge at the limp, leftover trays of dainties when they went back to the kitchen. That's where I first saw "checkerboard sandwiches"---a tooo-twee concoction involving spreading crustless white bread with good sharp heavy pimiento cheese, stacking them someway criss-cross, and making a pattern that you cut down through, stack again, rotating each one ninety degrees, and cut again, so that the slices laid on the luncheon plate are little yellow and white checkerboards.

Like this, only with bright-orange Paminna Cheese spread, and white bread.

Quite striking and a lotta trouble, plus you had to have a fork to eat the thing, so they must have broken for refreshments instead of munching out of hand like we always did at our cutthroat games of Rook or Monopoly.

And I still cannot pass that Brach’s display in the grocery store---the one with all the little sections and scoops and bags-for-filling, without thinking of that elusive, too-fancy-for-us Bridge Mix.

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